Lamp And Every-Day-Carry Storage | Shapeoko 3

Published April 5, 2017

I made this as a present for a friend of mine this past Christmas. It is designed as a storage tray that sits on your night stand or table near the front door for your every day carry such as wallet, keys and loose change.

The light was added as an extra touch which is nice if the tray is used on a bedside table as it provides a nice ambiance, not so much a reading light!

Design:

As with all my builds these days, I started in Fusion 360.

I modeled the part as one piece then split in half as the maximum thickness of the wood I have is 20mm.

Making:

Took the GCODE from Fusion and set up my Shapeoko to cut out the parts.

After the parts were cut, the two halves of the part could be glued together and then the bottom edges were rounded over on the router table.

Some scrap copper pipe formed the mount for the bulb and I soldered some decorative connecting pieces to make the stem a little more interesting.

The copper, after soldering, could be buffed up nicely with some steel wool and then inserted into the base.

Following this, a small hole for the wires to the bulb was drilled into the side of the copper pipe in the electronics compartment of the base.

Next, the switch could be installed.

Followed shortly by the bulb socket which was epoxied onto the top of the stem. Hot glue was also poured into the stem to help keep the bulb socket in place and increase the connection strength. It also helped insulate the electrical connections inside the bulb from the copper pipe.

Finally, the electronics could be soldered up and a nice braided cord added to connect the lamp to the mains.

As you can see, I potted the electronics with hot glue to keep them in place but also to insulate them which meant I didn’t need to create a cover for this compartment under the base.

After that it was just a matter of applying some finish to the wood and giving the whole thing a wipe down with a cloth!